Being Bad: Assisted by the Net

Being bad is Wikipedia all over. I never knew this until I came to University but if I wanted to I could get on Wikipedia give my opinions and thoughts and claim them to be fact. Now I have recently noticed that some higher power in the Wikipedia world is trawling through the reams of unqualified knowledge to verify it and put the stamp of truth on it. Thats frightening, next we will be told by our kids lecturers use Wikipedia its a legitimate and useful source.

Wikipedia looks to be a challenge to the academic establishment. Many of us like to think of ourselves as rebellious and quite willing to tell the establishment where to go, fact is most of us sit and wait till someone else voices their opinion and we wait to see if the tide turns, then get on the bandwagon with the group.

This is where the internet comes in handy as Philippe Breton in Le Monde diplomatique suggests the internet took over from the hippys, beat generation and revolutionaries of the 60's and 70's http://mondediplo.com/2000/10/06internet. We can now challenge the establishment from the comfort of our own computer chair, not having to risk being laughed at. For example if we google the phrase "existence of aliens" within the first 10 listings we have people claimimg Pres. Obama will reveal whether or not aliens exist. Google it and read some of the junk there, proof people like to hide behind the net to rebel. For a laugh you have got read the one entitled "ask an astrobiologist".

I guess the point I am making is being bad has been made so much easier in that we can now set up a blog and bring about massive social change as the blog Ushahidi in Kenya helped the world see the prevalence of vote rigging, tribal violence linked to opposing candidates http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/author/ory/. Ory Okolloh has brought change to Kenya by bringing the countries plight to the attention of the world and even winning awards for it. This is proof of one person being bad, in the eyes of her countries government, using the net to change the face of the elections so they become a little more democratic.